We Tried The Cool Health Craze That Hollywood Is Obsessed With

Mandy Moore swears by it, PR maven Roxy Jacenko is obsessed with it: but what exactly is cryotherapy and why the heck would someone want to subject themselves to temperatures hundreds of degrees below zero in their underwear?

"Cryotherapy has its roots in Japan in the 1970s, where it was being used as a treatment for arthritic inflammation, " founder Jacob Ohlson explains. "It's designed to kick-start metabolism and help alleviate inflammation from aches and pains."

On the whole, Cryo treatment aims to:

boost metabolism to help you lose weight faster

increase endorphins for elevated physical and mental well-being

flush toxins from the skin and muscle tissue

relieve and soothe joint pain and inflammation

improve muscle repair and recovery

Recently, we visited Cryo in Sydney's Double Bay to find out what all the fuss was about, and we've been pleasantly surprised. The timing of our appointment was also pretty apt considering we'd returned to Pump class just two days prior, and were struggling to walk up and down stairs.

You start with an orientation-style video to explain how the next two-three minutes of your life will play out. You're instructed to leave your underwear on, and to put on the Cryo-issued robe hanging in your private change room.

You are then escorted into the next room where you will put on gloves and fluffy booties. Stepping into the Cryo pod with your robe on, you are then instructed to remove it and the temperature begins to drop.

We're not going to lie: you are going to notice temperatures of -140 degrees on your skin, but it's not nearly as unpleasant as we'd anticipated, and time in the chamber goes pretty quickly.

You might feel a little tingly, and the natural response to these temperatures is an increase in blood flow to the internal organs and a flooding of the red blood cells with oxygen, nutrients and enzymes.

It was a bit of an unusual sensation as we began getting dressed following the treatment, skin still cold and red due to the returning blood flow. But most noticeably, an intense feeling of euphoria. Even after a long day of work, the Cryo session was like a caffeine shot to the heart.